Inside Out 2023: a few choice films out of hundreds

20 MAY 2023 -

The Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival is about to begin. As usual there are hundreds of features, documentaries and shorts carefully curated for our viewing pleasure. In fact an overwhelming number of choices. Being in the fortunate position of being asked to preview, I browsed the catalogue and sent in a list, a long list, of films that I personally was interested in seeing. The hardworking publicist found me as many screeners as they could and I dutifully started viewing. There was not a dud in the batch. While I would highly recommend browsing the catalogue oneself—my choices were based on my own idiosyncratic tastes and what was available—and paying attention to the word of mouth during the festival. Here, in no particular order, is what I saw.

Narrow Path to Happiness is a Hungarian feature documentary that is a slice of the life of two remarkable gay men in a horrifying situation. Grego and Lenard are Romani and flee their small town to Budapest in search of a better life. Specifically to live openly and to launch Grego's singing career by making the "first LGBTQ Romani musical." Narrow Path to Happiness chronicles their coming out stories, their artistic struggles, their ascension to a certain celebrity status, and most of all their love and relationship. The Hungarian president makes some homophobic statements and the queer community is galvanized but largely ineffectual. It is this constant prejudice against queers and Romani by both the media, the public and family members that make Grego and Lenard's quest so quixotic. The filmmakers wisely concentrate less on the individual battles and final results, and more on how the couple struggles to cope and keep moving forward. They are both naïve and determined, and Grego is a natural on camera. They may never get the Oscar or fame they fervently desire but, after experiencing a taste of their ambition and guts, it would be magnificent to see their musical at a future Inside Out.

Golden Delicious was screened at the Canadian Film Festival and I reviewed it then. Very favourably. Writer Gorman Lee and director Jason Karman have crafted a coming out tale that gently puts a twist on all the clichés associated with the genre. The sub-plots are strong and setting the events in an Asian family only makes it more universal in its specifity. There is a crucial sub-theme about the dangers of living life online and the unrealistic expectations social media creates, contrasted with a heavy-handed metaphor about distancing oneself with photography. But one can't help but root for the lead Cardi Wong and the strong supporting cast who all have their moments to shine. Just try to resist the saintly stud played by Chris Carson whose basketball star/sexual tutor/gay fantasy provides the heat and sex appeal that makes an Inside Out screening a success.   

The feature Runs in the Family is one of those films that should be a mainstream hit but is just quirky enough to need a film festival launch. After that the word of mouth should give it momentum. A reformed forger enlists his trans son, River, to join him on a road trip to rescue the son's long-vanished mother from a rehab clinic. What begins as a comic romp as the two who deeply love each other but have a wide range of cultural differences, gets deeper as the emotional stakes get higher. Will River make it back in time to compete in the Miss Vagesty drag contest in order to win enough prize money to pay for his top surgery? The complications pile up and none of the relationships get any easier. For the most part the theme of the importance of chosen family with a side of chosen gender and sexuality is handled subtly, but the finale manages to pack a wallop complete with feel-good tears.
 
Gabe Gabriel (also the writer) plays River and he projects a tough smart-mouthed exterior that cracks just enough as the micro-aggressions become constant. A scene at the rehab clinic involving photo ID and gender identity is horrific while also being darkly comic. Gabriel not only has very expressive eyes but he also proves to be a dynamic drag performer. Even when competing against a glamorous and energetic group of fierce South African drag icons. Ace Bhatti who is familiar from Bohemian Rhapsody, Bend it Like Beckham and possibly from Eastenders, contends with racial micro-aggressions as well as the urge to supplement his new career as a tailor with his more lucrative past as a grifter. Bhatti has a knack with a deadpan aphorism that makes light of, and enhances, a truth he is trying to express. He also finesses some physical comedy, in a plot twist that would be a spoiler, that is played just to the edge of outrageous. He, like the entire film, is utterly charming.

A mystical if broken-hearted drag queen saves the day in the Argentinian short The Dance Off. Ernesto (Valentin Gerez) is trapped in the middle of nowhere while his mother finishes her shift at a gas station. Ernesto's friend mocks Ernesto's ambitions to be a dancer and, from the initial evidence, quite rightly. Enter Ruby (Nicolas Keller Sarmiento who also wrote and directed) a hairy-chested diva in a gold lamé jumpsuit. Ruby explains why drag queens are the opposite of strippers, echoes Ernesto's mother's advice to always "move forward bravely and embrace uncertainty," and why "music is nothing without a body to inhabit it." The wise benevolent downtrodden drag queen is a bit of a trope, but when it involves an exuberant dance off, The Dance Off sashays off the screen and into one's heart. And there is a magical disco ball earring.

Krush the Wrestler delves into another form of drag. The documentary short, narrated by Krush himself, explores how Krush's fetish for submission wrestling was turned into a lucrative business. Once he's learned how to monetize his desires, the business escalates from g-rated to soft core to the edge of hard.. As Krush says of his product, it "makes you feel alive. Or just get off in the moment. And I'm happy to do it."  Of course the clips are fun to watch even if one's tastes are more vanilla and less for grappling—muscled men getting sweaty and near naked (and naked) can't help but appeal—but filmmaker Alex Megaro also unleashes a stunning jump cut linking Catholicism to homoeroticism and a homage to Ken Russell.. Krush the Wrestler hints that Krush may be an unreliable narrator, but the persona is sincere and fascinating even at face, and pec, value.

Elias (Julius Fleischanderl), searching for a relationship and an end to his virginity, falls into a fetish of his own when his childhood teddy bear returns. Bear chronicles their burgeoning bond and the short straddles the line between hilarious and disturbing. Bear has the best lines—"have you considered attending specially designed sodomy establishments?"—but Elias's friends are just as eloquent—"may your love survive war, famine and Eurovision." Fleischanderl is wide-eyed and extremely cute, so his explanations of his love are sweetly cringey and the sex scenes, man on plush toy, are oddly emotionally sound. Writer and director Jimi Vall Peterson never lets the gags outwear their welcome and if the final punchline falls a little flat due to pathos, what precedes has been solid and with a clever mise en scene shot in sumptuous black and white. 

There are a lot of laughs packed into the nine minutes of Testing. A young man, Ethan (Andy Reid who also wrote and directed), goes to a clinic to be checked for STIs, only to find that the handsome, older doctor (Christopher Jacot) is a man he has slept with in the recent past. In our sadly sexphobic culture, awkwardness while recounting one's sexual history and having intimate areas invaded clinically, is unavoidable at the best of times. In this situation it is amplified by the doctor's attempts to be professional and Ethan's tendency to break the tension by joking. And also flirting. Testing is very funny in a droll, specifically gay, manner, but it also muses on the power balances in sexual encounters, ageism, and class differences. Reid is charmingly goofy and Jacot is handsome and stoic so they make a good comedy team if probably an improbable romantic or erotic pairing.

There are more laughs of the more satirical kind in Insta Gay. Our anti-hero (Simon Paluck who also wrote and directed the short film) is a frustrated writer whose ex has become a successful social media influencer. Successful by flaunting his physical attributes and creating dubious product, as Paluck sneers, like an "inspirational video about suicide prevention" with the motto "don't let anyone dim your sparkle." Paluck does a lot of sneering and quipping but when he doesn't get a job producing clickbait for a trendy but tragic website, he decides to join the trendoids and become an #instagay himself. He swears that he'll quit as soon as he gains 100,000 followers or will use a "safeword for when its no longer magical." Insta Gay viciously mocks social media and the shallower aspects of gay culture. A birthday party where no-one will eat the cake because of the carbs and sugar is high hilarity. What lengths will a gay man go to be popular, desired and financially secure? Probably even more extremely than this Insta Gay dares.

Of course the Inside Out catalogue contains many more films than I managed to get through. On my list is also the closing night gala Glitter and Doom, a musical with Lea Delaria and Tig Notaro that involves love, lust and running away with the circus; Queendom about a Russian performance artist with fabulous fashions; coming out stories Wolf and Dog and Big Boys; the AIDS documentary Commitment to Life that examines Hollywood's influences on the battle against the epidemic, and Pipes, an animation about a plumber who finds himself unexpectedly in a fetish club. And that's from my first cursory browse, as previously advised, your own instincts, word of mouth and the advice of the #instagays will reveal many, many more must-sees.